Transhumance is a resource efficient means of livestock production by seasonally moving grazing animals to utilize pastures between varying ecological zones. This article investigated the interrelationship between the environmental services the transhumant provides whilst maintaining its cultural heritage and theorized what the cultural and environmental impacts would be if the practice of transhumance were to vanish. The authors interviewed 45 transhumant families during their 2015 seasonal migration through the Taurus Mountains and in their settled tent sites in Central Anatolia. The (...) interview topics related to geography of the region, migration routes, natural resource constraints and opportunities, animal husbandry, grazing strategies and their income sources. By practicing agro-ecological principles over millennia, the research showed that the transhumant has helped shape a complex mosaic of habitats in one of Mediterranean’s most interesting ecosystems. The mobile pastoralist with conservation and natural resource management skills over a long period has reduced erosion control, improved soil quality and deterred the likelihood of forest fires, whilst weaving a resilient social web. The survey also indicated a clear link between social and ecological resilience emphasizing that sustainable development relies on the interconnectedness between biological and cultural diversity. The study recommends special provisions be made by the Turkish government for the educational needs for the children of the transhumant, provide initiatives for improved trading of their produce, introduce law enforcement for oppressive behavior against them and finally support the pastoralists to attain world heritage listing as a unique and an irreplaceable culture for the future welfare of humankind. (shrink)

The consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) for human rights protection are poorly understood. We propose that the impact of FDI varies across industries. In particular, extractive firms in the oil and mining industries go where the resources are located and are bound to such investment, which creates a status quo bias among them when it comes to supporting repressive rulers (“location-bound effect”). The same is not true for nonextractive multinational corporations (MNCs) in manufacturing or services, which can, in (...) comparison, exit problematic countries more easily. We also propose that strong democratic institutions can alleviate negative impacts of extractive FDI on human rights (“democratic safeguard effect”). Using U.S. FDI broken up into extractive and nonextractive industries in 157 host countries (1999–2015), we find support for these propositions.1 Extractive FDI is associated with more human rights abuse, but nonextractive FDI is associated with less abuse, after controlling for other factors, including concerns about endogeneity. We find also that the negative human rights impact of extractive FDI vanishes in countries where democratic institutions are stronger. Our results are robust to a range of alternative estimation techniques. (shrink)

The modern American libertarian movement began in the mid-1960s. The surviving written resources from this early era are vanishing, unless converted to digital format. This article provides background for the development of this movement and presents currently available online digital publication platforms. Along with some relevant publications in need of digital preservation.

The relentless exploitation of the earth's resources and technologys boundless growth are a matter of urgent concern. When did this race towards the limitless begin? The Greeks, who shaped the basis of Western thinking, lived in mortal fear of humanity's hidden hunger for the infinite and referred to it as hubris, the one true sin in their moral code. Whoever desired or possessed too much was implacably punished by nemesis, yet the Greeks themselves were to pioneer an unprecedented level (...) of ambition that began to reverse that tabu. If it is true that no culture can truly repudiate its origins, and that gods who are no longer potent can vanish but still leave behind a body of myth which coninues to live and assert itself in modernized garb, then our concern with the limits of growth reflects something more than an awareness of new technological problems - it also brings to light a psychic wound a a feeling of guilt which are infinitely more ancient. (shrink)

Raimo Tuomela’s we-mode groups are partly characterized by norms. Some norms may be characteristic of all we-mode groups like the norm restricting a member’s right to leave the group. Some think that this aspect of Tuomela’s theory has implausible ethical implications concerning the rights and autonomy of members in we-mode groups. That worry vanishes, I argue, on a plausible interpretation of Tuomela’s notion of social normativity and a reasonable precisification of the notion of autonomy in this context. On the other (...) hand, Tuomela’s general silence on the nature of moral normativity makes it unclear how his distinction between social and moral normativity should be drawn more precisely. Is this a difference in kind, or merely a difference in the scope or social basis of the norms in question? I find this worth exploring with the aid of resources available within a broadly Tuomelian framework. Like Jeremy Koons (2019), I believe that Tuomela’s framework could be used to refine Wilfrid Sellars theory of ethical judgments as expressions of we-intentions. My preferred interpretation of Tuomela differs from Koons’ though, and so does the resulting reconstruction of Sellars, which is more Humean than Kantian. (shrink)

The Gray Man is the antithesis of individual expression. He hides in the corners of conformity. He only flaunts a quotidian nature. He meanders through the mundane and occupies the ordinary. Individual expression and exceptionalism are his enemies. The Gray Man is the forgettable face, the ghost guy, the hidden human. Implementing the concepts is more than looking less tactical, less hostile, or less threatening. It is the willful abandonment of anything and everything that defines oneself as different. Using his (...) unique "S" word conceptual approach featured in Appear to Vanish, camouflage and concealment expert Matthew Dermody discusses the concepts, tactics and mindset necessary to assimilate into any urban environment. From the safety-conscious international traveler to the SERE contingencies of the deep cover foreign operative, GRAY MAN is the definitive urban concealment resource. (shrink)

What are we to make of Western Buddhism? Glenn Wallis argues that in aligning their tradition with the contemporary self-help industry, Western Buddhists evade the consequences of Buddhist thought. This book shows that with concepts such as vanishing, nihility, extinction, contingency, and no-self, Buddhism, like all potent systems of thought, articulates a notion of the "real." Raw, unflinching acceptance of this real is held by Buddhism to be at the very core of human "awakening." Yet these preeminent human truths (...) are universally shored up against in contemporary Buddhist practice, which contradicts the very heart of Buddhism. The author's critique of Western Buddhism is threefold. It is immanent, in emerging out of Buddhist thought but taking it beyond what it itself publicly concedes; negative, in employing the "democratizing" deconstructive methods of François Laruelle's non-philosophy; and re-descriptive, in applying Laruelle's concept of philofiction. Through applying resources of Continental philosophy to Western Buddhism, A Critique of Western Buddhism suggests a possible practice for our time, an "anthropotechnic", or religion transposed from its seductive, but misguiding, idealist haven. (shrink)

Knowledge before belief ascription? Yes and no (depending on the type of “knowledge” under consideration). In an influential paper, Jonathan Phillips and colleagues have recently presented a fascinating and provocative big picture that challenges foundational assumptions of traditional Theory of Mind research (Phillips et al., 2020). Conceptually, this big picture is built around the main claim that ascription of knowledge is primary relative to ascription of belief. The primary form of Theory of Mind (ToM) thus is so-called factive ToM that (...) centres around knowledge-related mental states that are true rather than meta-representational ToM that centres around subjective epistemic states like belief that may or may not be true (Nagel, 2017; Phillips & Norby, 2019). Empirically, Phillips and colleagues build on converging findings from different areas: Ample research in developmental psychology shows that children track who has had informational access to events (and thus knows about the events) before they keep track of others’ potentially false beliefs (e.g., Perner & Roessler, 2012). Many studies from comparative psychology have found evidence that non-human great apes keep track of others’ perceptual and informational access while there is no convincing evidence that they keep track of others’ beliefs (Horschler et al., 2020; Martin & Santos, 2016; Call & Tomasello, 2008). And, work from cognitive psychology and experimental philosophy suggests that adults are faster, for example, to judge what others know than to judge what they believe (Phillips et al., 2018).In this commentary, we would like to critically evaluate and friendly amend the claims put forward by Phillips and colleagues. Conceptually, while we agree that some form of factive Theory of Mind is primary, we would like to raise doubts whether this primary factive ToM already involves full-fledged knowledge ascription. Empirically, we will point to potential test cases that are suitable to test Phillips and colleagues’ account against the friendly amendment proposed here. Is knowledge ascription really primary relative to belief ascription?We agree that the empirical findings reviewed by Phillips and colleagues do make a strong case for the conjecture that some form of factive ToM is indeed (phylogenetically, ontogenetically, and cognitively) primary. But we suspect that this claim, in unqualified form, may be somewhat incomplete and misleading. There is not necessarily one unitary form of factive ToM, and one notion of “knowledge“ in play across development and evolution, and perhaps not even in adults‘ Theory of Mind. This suspicion builds on several foundations: First, from an empirical point of view there have been, as highlighted by the authors, characteristic U-shaped developmental curves in some tasks of factive ToM – often a reliable indicator that different underlying processes are in play (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). Second, from a theoretical point of view, conceptual change and dual process approaches to ToM and other forms of social cognition have highlighted the possibility of more complex developmental trajectories such that earlier and more basic forms of a conceptual competence may be supplemented and superseded by later and more sophisticated refinements (e.g. Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Perner, 1991). For the case of factive ToM, it may be that there is a basic and primitive notion of “knowledge“ in place early in ontogeny (and perhaps phylogenetically more ancient) that shares some of the essential features of our mature “knowledge” concept: “knowledge” in this broad sense, as emphasized by the authors, is factive, not modality-specific, and allows for representations of egocentric ignorance. For this basic concept, the slogan “knowledge before belief“ may well be true. However, this basic concept need not yet be our mature notion of knowledge proper and thus this basic form of factive ToM may fall crucially short of our adult form of factive ToM. Why? Because essential elements of our mature concept of knowledge are still missing: First of all, while so-called Gettier cases and other considerations make clear that knowledge does not reduce to justified true belief (one can have justified true beliefs that still do not amount to knowledge; Gettier, 1963), according to many accounts knowledge at least presupposes justified true belief. Correspondingly, ascription of knowledge would thus presuppose ascription of belief. Now, we understand that this is one of the very traditional assumptions that Phillips and colleagues challenge, and given space restrictions we will not focus on it here any further (see, e.g, Rose & Schaffer, 2013). But there is a second crucial aspect of knowledge proper that is missing from the basic notion: knowledge proper is aspectual, and consequently reports of knowledge proper are intensional, while neither seems to be the case of basic knowledge and reports of it. Knowledge proper is aspectual in the following sense: whether or not someone knows something depends on how, under which aspects, she has had informational access to a given scene. Suppose Eve has seen Clark Kent enter the house. Does she know that Superman is in the house? It depends. If she knows about the identity Clark Kent = Superman, she does, otherwise she does not. Consequently, knowledge ascription is intensional in the sense that the substitution of co-referential terms is not necessarily truth-value preserving: “Eve knows that Clark Kent is in the house“ does not imply “Eve knows that Superman is in the house”.Now, from the point of view of cognitive development, much research suggests that children’s appreciation of the aspectuality of propositional attitudes (and the intensionality of propositional attitude reports) develops in protracted ways not before the age of four (e.g., Apperly & Robinson, 1998; Rakoczy et al., 2015; Proft et al., 2019). In fact, recent studies suggest that around age four children undergo a fundamental and coherent cognitive revolution: they acquire a solid meta-representational notion of propositional attitudes that allows them to ascribe subjective aspectual representations that may or may not be accurate: Children come to solve false belief tasks that require belief ascription at the same time as tasks that require an understanding of aspectuality, and there is strong convergence/correlation between these different tasks (Rakoczy, 2017; Rakoczy et al., 2015). These considerations thus evoke a somewhat modified picture of the developmental course of factive Theory of Mind: Some form of factive ToM, indeed, comes first (developmentally and phylogenetically). In this primary stage, subjects track agents‘ cognitive relations to the world that display some of the essential signatures of knowledge proper (factive; not modality-specific; allow for representations of egocentric ignorance). Various approaches in ToM research over the last years have aimed at describing this basic form of knowledge-like relations, for example in terms of “cognitive connections“ (Flavell, 1988), “registration“ (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009), “experiential records“ (Perner & Roessler, 2012) or “awareness relations“ (Martin & Santos, 2016). While differing in focus and details, all these accounts converge in stressing one crucial point: this early form of factive ToM allows observer to keep track of what others have or have not witnessed and, in this sense, what they do or do not know. It allows, in other words, so-called “Level I” perspective-taking (Flavell, 1977): understanding what others see. But this early form of factive ToM still falls short of knowledge ascription proper because it lacks an appreciation of the essential aspectuality of propositional attitudes in general and of knowledge in particular. In other words, it does not yet allow for “Level II” perspective-taking: understanding how different agents may represent a given scene (Fizke et al., 2017; Low & Watts, 2013; Oktay-Gür et al., 2018). Only later, around age 4, do children then develop the new meta-representational framework of propositional attitudes that goes beyond basic factive ToM. Once they have this framework and thus an understanding of aspectuality at hand, they can extend their initial and primary factive ToM to acquire the mature concept of knowledge (as at least presupposing true, justified belief, where belief is necessarily aspectual). So, while basic knowledge ascription indeed precedes belief ascription, full-blown attribution of aspectual knowledge develops in tandem with belief attribution. Or in other words: basic factive ToM precedes full-blown meta-representational ToM but full-blown factive ToM does not (since it is itself a part of full-blown meta-representational ToM). Empirical outlookThis slightly modified picture raises many interesting new empirical questions, and makes competing predictions relative to the picture put forward by Phillips and colleagues: From developmental and comparative perspectives, the modified picture would predict that “knowledge before belief” only applies for a circumscribed set of knowledge-related situations: those in which knowledge ascription does not require sensitivity to the aspectuality of knowledge (does not require distinguishing, for example, “Does she know that Clark Kent is in the house?” vs. “Does she know that Superman is in the house?”) and is limited to Level I perspective-taking. Young children before the age of four and non-human primates should be able to solve such non-aspectual knowledge ascription problems. But only older children from around age four, once they have acquired the full-fledged conceptual apparatus of meta-representation, should be able to handle aspectual knowledge ascription. Regarding adult functioning, the most fundamental question is: Do adults operate with one unitary factive ToM, as Phillips and colleagues assume? Or are there two kinds of factive ToM throughout the lifespan, as our modified picture suggests? In particular, does the more basic version remain in operation in adulthood, perhaps even as the default mode, that reveals itself under conditions of speeded responses, limited cognitive resources etc.? If the latter were true, specific performance patterns should be found. First, results such that adults are faster at knowledge ascription than at belief ascription (as found in Phillips et al., 2018) should be restricted to designs where knowledge ascription does not require any considerations of aspectuality. In such designs (as they were used in Phillips et al., 2018), subjects can make use of their primordial (non-aspectual) factive ToM in knowledge ascription, but have to use their full-fledged (aspectual) ToM in belief ascription. However, in new cases in which knowledge ascription is potentially aspectual (“Does Eve know that Superman is in the house?”), the speed difference between knowledge and belief ascription should vanish since both now require full-fledged (aspectual) ToM. Second, and relatedly, fast factive ToM should have characteristic signature limits to do with the lacking appreciation of aspectuality (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Low et al., 2016): Subjects under speeded conditions (or in dual task formats in which their central cognitive resources are taxed) should be unable to systematically distinguish between “Eve knows that Clark Kent is the house” (true) and “Eve knows that Superman is in the house” (possibly true). No such signature limits should be expected, in contrast, under reflective conditions in which subjects can use their full-fledged and mature factive ToM. Interestingly, these hypothetical developmental and adult performance patterns would correspond to similar patterns found in the domain of modal judgments. Adults, it seems, have two notions of modality at their disposal: a more primitive (ontogenetically old) default notion that does not differentiate between descriptive and normative modals and thus yield characteristic signature limits; and more differentiated and nuanced notions (ontogenetically more recent) that do sharply distinguish between different forms of modality. What works fast and gets addressed in speeded tasks is the primitive default notion (in speeded tasks, adults tend to confuse what is possible with what is permitted, for example, in the way very young children do) whereas the more nuanced notions reveal themselves in reflective task settings in which adults are not subject to such confusions (Phillips & Cushman, 2017). Modality judgments and factive ToM may thus reveal striking analogies. Just like in the area of modality, then, there may be basic and default factive ToM, present from early on and in operation throughout the lifespan in speeded responses (and under other conditions of limited cognitive resources), and more sophisticated factive Theory of Mind that develops later on the basis of full-fledged meta-representation and that reveals itself in more reflective judgements. (shrink)

Joss Whedon deserves credit for using the vehicle of his enduringly popular television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, to expose California's colonial history and raise questions regarding sustained responsibilities to the U.S. colonial past. This article, however, points out the ways in which BtVS and Angel, especially in the season four crossover episode of BtVS entitled “Pangs,” perpetuate the notion that this history and the indigenous peoples affected by it have vanished. It argues that this erasure of contemporary (...) American Indian peoples leaves reflective and ethically engaged people like Buffy and her "Scooby Gang"—and, by extension, socially conscientious fans of the show—without resources to be responsive to sustained colonial power structures in the present, and to the living indigenous peoples who continue to both suffer from and resist these structures. (shrink)

In this paper, we are going to address job satisfaction and perceived self-efficacy within the context of residential child-care. A joint report from the European Foundation for the Improvement on Living and Working Conditions and the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work revealed that managers in the field of health and education were the most concerned about the psychosocial risk of their employees, although concern is not automatically translated into tools to face the risk and to manage it. (...) So, measuring and improving employees’ job satisfaction and self-efficacy can be an important means for organizations to prevent the outcomes of psychosocial risk, and supporting high quality performance of workers. But profound changes are affecting the nature of work at large, and specifically social educator’s in the field of residential care with minors. Globalization, radical technological and communication developments, as well as the pressure to frame care as a commodity, are quickly changing procedures and praxis at work, and even the meaning of job itself. All these changes are highly demanding for this category of professionals, as much as the fact that the organizational setting is vanishing as a resource to sustain their professional attitudes and behaviours. Under these circumstances, job satisfaction and self-efficacy can be hard to experience, and isolating their precursors is essential to develop healthy and effective work environments. This paper means to highlight the process of supporting self-efficacy and job satisfaction in the educational work in residential youth care that is still underrepresented in research. It presents data emerging from two studies, study 1 involving 268 educators and study 2 involving 472 educators belonging to different Italian residential child-care services. Study 1 consists of a quantitative study including the following measures: attachment style, job satisfaction, work-related self-efficacy, and length of service. Study 2 consist of a qualitative exploration deepening the sources of educators’ work-satisfaction. Quantitative data support the identification of attachment style and length of service as antecedents of work-related self-efficacy. Qualitative data show the importance of relational issues in shaping the educators’ satisfaction at work. (shrink)

If voters accord evidentiary value to one another's reports, revising their own views in the light of them as Bayesian rationality requires, then even relatively small electoral majorities ought to prove rationally compelling and opposition ought rationally to vanish. For democratic theory, that is a jarring result. While there are no resources for avoiding that result within the Bayesian model itself, there are various aspects of the political process lying outside that model which do serve to underwrite the rationality (...) of persistent opposition to majority opinion. Key Words: Bayesian rationality • consensus • political opposition. (shrink)

During the 1950s, there was a burst of enthusiasm about whether artificial intelligence might surpass human intelligence. Since then, technology has changed society so dramatically that the focus of study has shifted toward society’s ability to adapt to technological change. Technology and rapid communications weaken the capacity of society to integrate into the broader social structure those people who have had little or no access to education. (Most of the recent use of communications by the excluded has been disruptive, not (...) integrative.) Interweaving of socioeconomic activity and large-scale systems had a dehumanizing effect on people excluded from social participation by these trends. Jobs vanish at an accelerating rate. Marketing creates demand for goods which stress the global environment, even while the global environment no longer yields readily accessible resources. Mining and petroleum firms push into ever more challenging environments (e.g., deep mines and seabed mining) to meet resource demands. These activities are expensive, and resource prices rise rapidly, further excluding groups that cannot pay for these resources. The impact of large-scale systems on society leads to mass idleness, with the accompanying threat of violent reaction as unemployed masses seek to blame both people in power as well as the broader social structure for their plight. Perhaps, the impact of large-scale systems on society has already eroded essential qualities of humanness. Humans, when they feel “socially useless,” are dehumanized. (At the same time, machines (at any scale) seem incapable of emotion or empathy.) Has the cost of technological progress been too high to pay? These issues are addressed in this paper. (shrink)

Papers presented at the Kierkegaard: Resources and Results Conference, held at McGill University, June 6-8, 1980.

Online learning resources play an important role in teaching and learning in the process of online learning. Teachers will be satisfied with selectable and suitable online learning resources, which can promote their self-efficacy to facilitate online teaching and learning. This study proposed a model to examine the effects of the selectivity of online learning resources and the suitability of online learning resources on teachers’ online teaching satisfaction, and the mediating role of technology self-efficacy and online teaching (...) self-efficacy between them. The results indicated that SE-OLR and SU-OLR positively affected teachers’ online teaching satisfaction; TECHN-SE and OT-SE positively influenced teachers’ online teaching satisfaction, while TECHN-SE and OT-SE played mediating roles between SE-OLR and SU-OLR and teachers’ online teaching satisfaction. The findings have implications for the design and development of online learning resources to improve teachers’ satisfaction and facilitate students’ learning effectiveness and teachers’ online teaching. (shrink)

This paper critically engages ethical issues in the allocation of novel, and potentially costly, health care resources to patients with disorders of consciousness. First, we review potential benefits of novel health care resources for patients and their families and outline preliminary considerations to address concerns about cost. We then address two problems regarding the allocation of health care resources to patients with disorders of consciousness: (1) the problem of uncertain moral status; and (2) the problem of accurately (...) measuring the welfare burdens these resources would relieve. We conclude by suggesting that opportunity-based frameworks might complement standard approaches for justifying resources allocation to patients with disorders of consciousness. (shrink)

This major new book contains a collection of papers that examine the current state-of-the-art in the valuation of environmental resources. In particular, they assess the meaningfulness of environmental resource values obtained through the contingent valuation metho.

The doctrine of permanent sovereignty over natural resources is a hugely consequential one in the contemporary world, appearing to grant nation-states both jurisdiction-type rights and rights of ownership over the resources to be found in their territories. But the normative justification for that doctrine is far from clear. This article elucidates the best arguments that might be made for permanent sovereignty, including claims from national improvement of or attachment to resources, as well as functionalist claims linking resource (...) rights to key state functions. But it also shows that these defences are insufficient to justify permanent sovereignty and that in many cases they actually count against it as a practice. They turn out to be compatible, furthermore, with the dispersal of resource rights away from the nation-state which global justice appears to demand. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a new type of nets with bounded types of distributed resources . Linear Logic to describe the behaviour of BR-nets is defined. It is based on Girard's Linear Logic but captures not only consumption of resources but their presence as well. Theorem of soundness and completeness of the proposed axiomatization is proved and the complexity of the provability problem is established for the general case and some particular ones.

This article considers the possible relation between the idea of parity and some past work on the allocation of scarce resources. Parity of value is first connected with the idea of some goods being irrelevant in interpersonal comparisons. The notion of moral parity is introduced to describe the recognition that people who are moral equals (even when they are not on a par in terms of value) as not substitutable. The relation between a Separability Test and nonsubstitutability of persons (...) is considered. These ideas are then used to discuss various cases in which one must choose to whom to provide medical assistance, including whether and when to distinguish morally between a disabled and a nondisabled person. (shrink)

Galton and subsequent investigators find wide divergences in people's subjective reports of mental imagery. Such individual differences might be taken to explain the peculiarly irreconcilable disputes over the nature and cognitive significance of imagery which have periodically broken out among psychologists and philosophers. However, to so explain these disputes is itself to take a substantive and questionable position on the cognitive role of imagery. This article distinguishes three separable issues over which people can be "for" or "against" mental images. Conflation (...) of these issues can lead to theoretical differences being mistaken for experiential differences, even by theorists themselves. This is applied to the case of John B. Watson, who inaugurated a half-century of neglect of image psychology. Watson originally claimed to have vivid imagery; by 1913 he was denying the existence of images. This strange reversal, which made his behaviorism possible, is explicable as a "creative misconstrual" of Dunlap's "motor" theory of imagination. (shrink)

Background: Concerns have been expressed regarding the adequacy of ethics review systems in developing countries. Limited data are available regarding the structural and functional status of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in the Middle East. The purpose of this study was to survey the existing RECs in Egypt to better understand their functioning status, perceived resource needs, and challenges. Methods: We distributed a self-administered survey tool to Egyptian RECs to collect information on the following domains: general characteristics of the REC, membership (...) composition, ethics training, workload, process of ethics review, perceived challenges to effective functioning, and financial and material resources. We used basic descriptive statistics to evaluate the quantitative data. Results: We obtained responses from 67% (12/18) of the identified RECs. Most RECs (10/12) have standard operating procedures and many (7/12) have established policies to manage conflicts of interests. The average membership was 10.3 with a range from 7-19. The predominant member type was physicians (69.5% of all of the REC members) with little lay representation (13.7%). Most RECs met at least once/month and the average number of protocols reviewed per meeting was 3.8 with a range from 1-10. Almost three-quarters of the members from all of the 12 RECs indicated they received some formal training in ethics. Regarding resources, roughly half of the RECs have dedicated capital equipment (e.g., meeting room, computers, office furniture, etc); none of the RECs have a formal operating budget. Perceived challenges included the absence of national research ethics guidelines and national standards for RECs and lack of ongoing training of its members in research ethics. Conclusion: Our study documents several areas of strengths and areas for improvements in the operations of Egyptian RECs. Regarding strengths, many of the existing RECs meet frequently, have a majority of members with prior training in research ethics, and have written policies. Regarding areas for improvements, many RECs should strive for a more diverse membership and should receive more financial resources and administrative support personnel. We recommend that RECs include more individuals from the community and develop a continuing educational program for its members. Institutional officials should be aware of the resource capacity needs of their RECs. (shrink)

The successful early acquisition of reading literacy represents a crucial learning process determining the further course of academic development (Stanovich, 2009). During this process, interactions between children and their proximal social environment are of utmost importance. Therefore, we introduce a systemic framework for the development of learning potential (e.g., Mudrak et al., 2015, 2019, 2019b; Ziegler & Stoeger, 2017) and explore the interactions between the social and motivational processes associated with reading literacy development in school-age children. We base our analysis (...) on a representative Czech sample of fourth-grade pupils involved in the Progress in International Reading Literacy study (PIRLS, Martin et al., 2016). On the basis of the systemic framework, we hypothesized hierarchical relationships among family socioeconomic status, related developmental resources (including parental support, expectations, and reading resources), children’s reading motivation (including reading engagement and reading confidence), and manifested learning outcomes (including school grades and reading competence). We implemented three structural equation models to test the hypothesized relationships. The first model tested the direct effect of developmental resources on reading competence. The second model included the motivational variables as mediators between resources and competence. The third model included school grades as mediators between resources and motivational variables. Our analyses indicated the good fit of the proposed models. The final model explained 37.8 % of the variance in children’s school grades and 46.5 % of the variance in reading literacy test scores (compared to 34.8 % in the first model). Moreover, parental socioeconomic status was strongly associated with parental expectations, which were associated with reading confidence, partially through the effect of parental expectations on children’s school grades. Reading confidence was the main predictor of reading literacy within the model, followed by the direct effects of parental resources. The results illustrate complex processes through which the family environment affects the development of learning competencies such as reading literacy by providing children with the relevant social and material resources associated with their motivation and school outcomes. We discuss some of the reasons that these relationships may take place and consider their implications for educational practice. (shrink)

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, practitioners had to make tragic decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources in the ICU. The Italian debate has paid a lot of attention to identifying the specific regulatory criteria for the allocation of resources in the ICU; in this paper, however, we argue that deciding such criteria is not enough for the implementation of fair and transparent allocative decisions. In this respect, we discuss three ethical issues: (a) (...) in the Italian context, the treating physician, rather than a separate committee, was generally the one responsible for the allocation decision; (b) although many allocative guidelines have supported moral equivalence between withholding and withdrawing treatments, some health professionals have continued to consider it a morally problematic aspect; and (c) the health workers who have had to make the aforementioned decisions or even only worked in ICU during the pandemic often experienced moral distress. We conclude by arguing that, even if these problems are not directly related to the above-mentioned issues of distributive justice, they can nevertheless directly affect the quality and ethics of the implementation of allocative criteria, regardless of those chosen. (shrink)

Background: Existing ethical guidelines recommend that, all else equal, past receipt of a medical resource (e.g. a scarce organ) should not be considered in current allocation decisions (e.g. a repeat transplantation).DiscussionOne stated reason for this ethical consensus is that formal theories of ethics and justice do not persuasively accept or reject repeated access to the same medical resources. Another is that restricting attention to past receipt of a particular medical resource seems arbitrary: why couldn't one just as well, it (...) is argued, consider receipt of other goods such as income or education? In consequence, simple allocation by lottery or first-come-first-served without consideration of any past receipt is thought to best afford equal opportunity, conditional on equal medical need. There are three issues with this view that need to be addressed. First, public views and patient preferences are less ambiguous than formal theories of ethics. Empirical work shows strong preferences for fairness in health care that have not been taken into account: repeated accessto resources has been perceived as unfair. Second, while difficult to consider receipt of many other prior resources including non-medical resources, this should not be used a motive for ignoring the receipt of any and all goods including the focal resource in question. Third, when all claimants to a scarce resource are equally deserving, then use of random allocation seems warranted. However, the converse is not true: mere use of a randomizer does not by itself make the merits of all claimants equal.SummaryMy conclusion is that not ignoring prior receipt of the same medical resource, and prioritizing those who have not previously had access to the medical resource in question, may be perceived as fairer and more equitable by society. (shrink)

Several feminist philosophers of science have argued that social and political values are compatible with, and may even enhance, scientific objectivity. A variety of normative recommendations have emerged regarding how to identify, manage, and critically evaluate social values in science. In particular, several feminist theorists have argued that scientific communities ought to: 1) include researchers with diverse experiences, interests, and values, with equal opportunity and authority to scrutinize research; 2) investigate or "study up" scientific phenomena from the perspectives, interests, and (...) conditions of marginalized stakeholders potentially affected by the research; and 3) make gender, ethnicity, class, and geographical location "visible," or use them as categories of analysis when appropriate. Yet, more work is needed to determine what exactly these recommendations would require, and the benefits they would yield, in specific research contexts. Using the recent development of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, we examine how these three feminist recommendations would have applied. We argue that these principles would have yielded several epistemic and social benefits in the HPV case, as well as in biomedical research more generally. That is, biomedical research guided by these principles would not only be epistemically superior, but also more socially responsible. (shrink)

Our society currently faces many complex and perplexing issues related to biotechnology, including the need to define the outer boundaries of genetic research on human beings and the need to protect individual and group rights to human tissue and the knowledge gained from the study of that tissue. Scientists have increasingly become interested in studying so-called “population isolates” to discover the nature and location of genes that are unique to particular groups. Indigenous peoples are often targeted by scientists because “the (...) relative isolation of the communities ensures minimal gene flow.” Such studies raise a number of issues related to privacy rights, property rights, informed consent, and group rights versus individual rights. These issues recently came to light in a case brought by the Havasupai Tribe and its members over the use of blood samples, handprints, and genealogy information initially taken by researchers at Arizona State University for a diabetes project. These materials were then allegedly used by researchers at ASU and other institutions for a multitude of unauthorized purposes, including research into the frequency of mental health disorders and the origin of human populations. Consequently, the affected members sued for damages under several legal theories. However, underlying all of these claims was the allegation that this unauthorized use of genetic resources and data not only injured the individuals who gave samples, but also caused a collective harm to the Havasupai Tribe and the cultural and spiritual beliefs of its members. (shrink)

In recent work, Michael Smith argues that particular desires are constitutive of ideal agency and draws on his dispositional account of reasons to establish the normative significance of those desires. In a sustained critique, Michael Bukowski objects that Smith’s recent arguments that particular desires are constitutive of ideal agency rely on indefensible premises and his dispositional account of reasons is unable to establish the normative significance of such desires. On the contrary, I argue not only that Smith has the (...) class='Hi'>resources to respond to these objections but also that the form of Smith’s constitutivist explanation has unappreciated explanatory strengths. (shrink)

A patient’s age serves as a very useful guide to physicians in deciding what disease manifestations to anticipate, what treatment to offer for certain conditions, and how to prepare for possible emergencies. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, determining treatment options on the basis of a patient’s chronological age can easily give rise to unjustified discrimination. This is of particular significance in situations where the allocation of scarce critical care resources could have a direct impact on who will (...) live and who will die. This paper examines the fairness of recommendations contained in resource allocation guidelines in the Philippines that have implications for the way elderly patients could be treated or excluded from some forms of critical care treatment in the context of the ongoing Corona virus emergency. (shrink)

Drawing from conservation of resources theory, we theorize that spiritual leadership serves as both a resource to enhance employees’ organizational commitment and a passageway to mitigate the negative effects of work–family conflict. Using primary triadic data from leaders, family employees, and nonfamily employees in 77 family firms, results support our theorizing that organizational commitment is enhanced by spiritual leadership but is decreased by work–family conflict. Contrary to theory, however, spiritual leadership exacerbated the negative effects of work–family conflict. Further analysis (...) reveals that family and nonfamily employees respond differently to leadership and work–family stressors. While spiritual leadership has positive effects for family employees, it has negative effects for nonfamily employees experiencing high work–family conflict. (shrink)

The paper argues that members of future generations have an entitlement to natural resources equal to ours. Therefore, if a currently living individual destroys or degrades natural resources then he must pay compensation to members of future generations. This compensation takes the form of “primary goods” which will be valued by members of future generations as equally useful for promoting the good life as the natural resources they have been deprived of. As a result of this policy, (...) each generation inherits a “Commonwealth” of natural resources plus compensation. It is this inherited “Commonwealth” which members of that generation must then pass on to members of the next generation. Once this picture is accepted, the standard bundle of property rights is problematic, for it takes the owner of a constituent of the Commonwealth to have the right to “waste, destroy or modify” that item at will. This paper therefore presents a revised set of property rights which takes seriously the idea that each generation has an equal claim on the resources that nature has bequeathed us, whilst allowing certain effects on those natural resources by each generation, and a degree of exclusive use of those natural resources owned by an individual. (shrink)

Recent research has shown that mind wandering recruits executive resources away from the external task towards inner thoughts. No studies however have determined whether executive functions are drawn away in a unitary manner during mind wandering episodes, or whether there is variation in specific functions impacted. Accordingly, we examined whether mind wandering differentially modulates three core executive functions—response inhibition, updating of working memory, and mental set shifting. In three experiments, participants performed one of these three executive function tasks and (...) reported their attentional state as either on-task or mind wandering at random intervals. We found that mind wandering led to poorer performance in the response inhibition and working memory tasks, but not the set-shifting task. These findings suggest that mind wandering does not recruit executive functions in a monolithic manner. Rather, it appears to selectively engage certain executive functions, which may reflect the adaptive maintenance of ongoing task performance. (shrink)

This study aimed to determine if people would use social usefulness as a criterion when allocating a kidney to potential recipients. Participants ranked hypothetical patients in order of priority to receive the kidney, using only information on the patients’ volunteering record, intelligence, emotional intelligence, and attractiveness. The results showed that volunteers were prioritized over nonvolunteers, highly intelligent patients over those with average intelligence, patients with high emotional intelligence over those with average emotional intelligence, and good-looking patients over average-looking patients. There (...) was little evidence of personal favoritism. Implications and limitations are discussed. (shrink)

There exists a considerable body of work on epistemic logics for resource-bounded reasoners. In this paper, we concentrate on a less studied aspect of resource-bounded reasoning, namely, on the ascription of beliefs and inference rules by the agents to each other. We present a formal model of a system of bounded reasoners which reason about each other’s beliefs, and investigate the problem of belief ascription in a resource-bounded setting. We show that for agents whose computational resources and memory are (...) bounded, correct ascription of beliefs cannot be guaranteed, even in the limit. We propose a solution to the problem of correct belief ascription for feasible agents which involves ascribing reasoning strategies , or preferences on formulas, to other agents, and show that if a resource-bounded agent knows the reasoning strategy of another agent, then its ascription of beliefs to the other agent is correct in the limit. (shrink)

The use of contingent valuation methods for estimating the economic value of environmental improvements and damages has increased significantly. However, doubts exist regarding the validity of the usual willingness to pay CV methods. In this article, we examine the CV approach in light of recent findings from behavioral decision research regarding the constructive nature of human preferences. We argue that a principal source of problems with conventional CV methods is that they impose unrealistic cognitive demands upon respondents. We propose a (...) new CV approach, based on the value-structuring capabilities of multiattribute utility theory and decision analysis, and discuss its advantages and disadvantages. (shrink)

Pogge’s proposal for a Global Resources Dividend (GRD) has been criticized because its likely effects would be less predictable than Pogge supposes and could even be counterproductive to the main aim of relieving poverty. The GRD might also achieve little with respect to its secondary aim of promoting environmental protection. This article traces the problems to Pogge’s inadequate conception of natural resources. It proposes instead to conceive of natural resources in terms of ‘ecological space’. Using this conception, (...) redistributive principles follow with a more definite logic from Pogge’s own supporting moral argument. The proposed alternative approach also promises a more direct contribution to Pogge’s secondary aim of resource conservation and environmental protection. I conclude that if any redistributive resource-based tax should be levied on nations, then there are at least four decisive reasons to favour levying a tax related to a nation’s per capita utilization of ecological space rather than the GRD. (shrink)

The present study aims to connect more the I/O and the decision-making psychological domains, by showing how some common components across jobs interfere with decision-making and affecting performance. Two distinct constructs that can contribute to positive workplace performance have been considered: decision-making competency (DMCy) and decision environment management (DEM). Both factors are presumed to involve self-regulatory mechanisms connected to decision processes by influencing performance in relation to work environment conditions. In the framework of the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, the (...) present study tested how such components as job demands, job resources and exhaustion can moderate decision-making processes and performance, where high resources are advantageous for decision-making processes and performance at work, while the same effect happens with low job demands and/or low exhaustion. In line with the formulated hypotheses, results confirm the relations between both the decision-making skills, performance (i.e. in-role and extra-role) and moderators considered. In particular, employees with low levels of DMCy show to be more sensitive to job demands toward in-role performance, whereas high DEM levels increase the sensitivity of employees toward job resources and exhaustion in relation to extra-role performance. These findings indicate that decision-making processes, as well as work environment conditions, are jointly related to employee functioning. (shrink)

In this article, I first compare positions I have taken in the past and those taken by Peter Singer on how the allocation of life-saving resources should be affected by the aggregation of expected quality of life, quantity of life, and need, both within the life of a person and across persons . I then reexamine the specific issue of whether and why differences in expected years of life and quality of life that a scarce resource can provide a (...) disabled and a nondisabled person should affect our allocation decisions. I attend to how the use of the veil of ignorance bears on this issue and also how the conclusions I reach differ in certain ways from my past positions. (shrink)

This article considers a range of responses to Plato's Symposium, paying particular attention to Diotima's speech on eros and philosophy. It argues that Diotima's teachings contain resources for a relational pedagogy, but that these resources come more sharply into focus when Plato's text is read through the lens of contemporary (20th and 21st century) thinkers. The article therefore draws on the work of David Halperin, Hannah Arendt, Jean-François Lyotard and Luce Irigaray to argue that Diotima points us towards (...) the value of educative encounters as reciprocal and unpredictable events of initiation and becoming. Diotima's rhetorical emphasis on birth is shown to be especially important for refiguring pedagogical relations in terms of natality, understood as a capacity for new beginnings, and hence for reclaiming education as a potentially generative encounter, rather than one governed by the logic of reproduction. The final section of the article turns to work by Christine Battersby, bell hooks, Richard Smith and Morwenna Griffiths to resituate the discussion in relation to questions of autonomy. As a corrective to the modern bias towards the value of the autonomous individual, it argues that dependencies and unequal power relations can be a constitutive and enabling aspect of the educative process. Attention to such relations should thus form a key part of a relational pedagogy. (shrink)

In this paper, I am clarifying and defending my argument in favor of the claim that cumulative selection can explain adaptation provided that the environmental resources are limited. Further, elaborate on what this limitation of environmental resources means and why it is relevant for the explanatory power of natural selection.

We acquire from others many of our epistemic resources – individual items of propositional knowledge but also evidential standards, perceptual sensibilities, and the overarching perspectives that include beliefs, standards, and sensibilities together. Knowledge from testimony, which is one category of acquisition of epistemic resources from others, has been studied extensively by epistemologists. We can begin to explore the wider realm of epistemic sharing by varying the characteristic features of testimony. Eleven dimensions of variation provide some structure to this (...) domain. The interactive complexity of the dimensions suggests a virtue epistemological approach to the evaluation of patterns of receptivity to the variety of sharings that we confront as knowers. (shrink)

The allocation of healthcare resources takes place at two distinct levels. At the macroeconomic level, policymakers decide on budgets, staffing, cost‐effectiveness thresholds, clinical guidelines and insurance payments; at the microeconomic level, healthcare professionals decide on whom to treat, what the appropriate treatment is, how much time and effort should each patient receive and how urgent the need for care is. At both levels, there is a constant social need for just allocation. Policymakers are mostly guided by abstract principles of (...) justice, thinking in terms of groups of patients, epidemiological data, impersonal statistics and economic costs. On the other hand, healthcare professionals understand the need for justice at a more personal level, as they interact with patients and, in a sense, put theory into practice. Nurses hold a unique position in healthcare systems, as, traditionally, they are closer to patients than other health professionals. This means that they have a firsthand view of the effect that their decisions have on specific patients and, therefore, nurses tend to get more influenced by their personal feelings, values and beliefs at the microeconomic level. This presentation shall examine the gap between abstract macroeconomic and concrete microeconomic health resources allocation decisions, with a particular emphasis on the role of the nurse. (shrink)

The U.S. Supreme Court declared procreation to be a fundamental right in the early twentieth century in a case involving Oklahoma's Habitual Criminal Sterilization Act, an act that permitted unconsented sterilization of individuals convicted of certain crimes. The right that the Court articulated in that case is a negative right: it requires that the government not place unjustified roadblocks in the way of people seeking to procreate, but it does not require the government to take positive steps to help people (...) procreate if they wish to. I argue that a positive legal right is morally necessary in the United States, given the profound significance of procreation, the current barriers to access to care, and the related issues of individual and societal justice. I assume at the outset that the right to procreate should be expansive enough to include a right to noncoital reproduction. The absence of a positive right to procreate reflects not just constitutional tradition but also a governmental and societal commitment to a longstanding set of reproductive hierarchies by which those who fall outside of the traditional framing of family too frequently find their procreative dreams hindered. Reconceiving procreative rights to include a positive right would create greater opportunities to argue and lobby for increased access to technologies that are out of reach for many. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has motivated medical ethicists and several task forces to revisit or issue new guidelines on allocating scarce medical resources. Such guidelines are relevant for the allocation of scarce therapeutics and vaccines and for allocation of ICU beds, ventilators, and other life-sustaining treatments or potentially scarce interventions. Principles underlying these guidelines, like saving the most lives, mitigating disparities, reciprocity to those who assume additional risk (eg, essential workers and clinical trial participants), and equal access (...) may compete with one another. We propose the use of a “categorized priority system” (also known as a “reserve system”) as an improvement over existing allocation methods, particularly because it may be able to achieve disparity mitigation better than other methods. (shrink)